Karma

Honestly, I hadn't thought about Karma in years. Back then I was a teenager and I had both their albums on cassette, and at a certain point my cassettes were pretty much all thrown away, in favor of other physical or digital formats. I'd lost track of Karma along the way, even though I'd loved their work. One of those Italian indie bands of my youth that, at a certain point, had simply vanished without my ever hearing about a split, like Flor or Fluxus.

That's why, when I heard about their reunion, I immediately wondered who else might remember them. I should have remembered myself that the videos for "La terra" and "Il cielo" were in heavy rotation on the dearly departed Videomusic. That had to mean something. And indeed, not only were the band's Lombardy shows massively packed (and, in fairness, that was a home crowd after all), but even the one Veneto date at the Revolution in Molvena (organized by the ever-active folks from the Ugly Dogs association) was an undeniable success, with the venue packed to the rafters with people who, by the look of it, must have been between 15 and 20 years old when the two classic albums first came out.

In truth, David Moretti and his four bandmates turned out to be remarkably un-nostalgic, aside from a few jokes about their 27 years away from the stage. The show was based almost entirely on their latest album (the excellent "K3"), with only a handful of nods to their Nineties output. Much better that way, given how tiresome the nostalgia-trip effect that's been haunting us for the past twenty-odd years can be.

So the focus is on looking forward, right from the instrumental opening followed by "Neri relitti," and the band proves to be thoroughly on form: the devastating rhythm section, made up of bassist Andrea Viti, drummer Diego Besozzi and percussionist Pacho Rossi, indulges in constant tempo changes and polyrhythms that often achieve a disorienting effect. Onto this monumental framework is grafted the guitar of Ralph Salati, a man who comes from metal (he plays in Destrage), which shows especially in the solos, complex but never self-indulgent, and above all Moretti's voice, as clear, expressive and powerful as thirty years ago, but now completely freed from the, all too often noted, influences of the era (Layne Staley chief among them).

The latest album is played in full (including the complex, sprawling "Goliath" and "Eterna") and the crowd sings along to it exactly as they do to the few classics granted: "Cosa resta" from the debut and "Terzo Millennio," from "Astronotus," where the singer pulls out the megaphone that was a genuine trademark of the band's old shows. This holds true, at least, until the encore, where, after "Corda di parole," the two great classics "La terra" and "Il cielo" are brought back, interspersed with a fine version of "Teardrop" by Massive Attack - the year of grace 1998, when Karma's story seemed to have ended. Luckily, in their case Samsara didn't need generations to complete its cycle and start over.

(Photo by Orazio Bao)

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